Welcome to the IOMeter Results Thread!
There are quite a few different disk benchmarks out there and each has it's pros & cons. IOMeter is nice in that it lets you define different 'Access Specifications'. An Access Specification determines the size of transfer, the mix of sequential/random and read/write.

IOMeter is also unique in that it'll run the same tests on Windows & Linux (sorry, no Mac support as far as I'm aware).

I've put together a configuration for IOMeter that will let us run the same tests on all systems. These are also the same tests that most reviewers use. You can finally compare your benchmark numbers directly to Storage Review and other sites.

Enter the amount of disk space to use for the test (a sector = 512 bytes; 20971520 = 10GB)

Check the boxes for the disks to test (hold CTRL to select more than one)

Enter "4" for "# of Outstanding I/Os"

On the Access Specification tab select all except "Idle" and click the "<< Add" Button

Start the tests and save the results as a CSV file

Post your CSV file here

Delete iobw.tst from each drive you tested.

IOMeter will cycle through each disk and run each test recording the results. The results will be for a Queue Depth of 4 as this represents 'heavy' usage for non-server workloads. (IOMeter will let you cycle each test at multiple Queue Depths but for 13 specifications and 6 queue depths we would be running 78 two-minute tests. (2.5 hours is a little long for a benchmark)

The MB/s and IOPs will come from the CSV file for most of the tests. I have an excel macro that will automatically pull the relevant information for me. But in your post, please include the results for the last test. This will be the "Workstation" test and is generally most indicative of our performance. It'll make the individual posts a bit more meaningful for everyone reading this thread, too. These numbers come from the "Results Display" tab and are the top two numbers ("Total I/Os per Second" = IOPs; "Total MBs per Second (Decimal)" = MB/s)

Note on SSDs and Disk Size:
If you leave Maximum Disk Size at 0 it'll use all free space on the drive. This results in quite a few write operations and may make later tests show degraded performance. Be sure to enter a value in "Maximum Disk Size". The number entered is the number of sectors to use. (Standard: 512 bytes / sector; Advanced Format: 4096 bytes / sector; Standard Drives: 20971520 sectors = 10GB)

The Tests4 KB Random Read/Write:

Read – This workload is used to assess the back-end capabilities of a storage system. Random reads tend not to benefit from cache, so this test places the maximum stress on the disk drives within a storage system. Most of the I/O traffic generated by interactive applications like on-line databases and e-mail systems tend to be composed of random reads. The metric that matters the most for this workload is I/O’s per second.

Write – This workload places maximum stress on the back-end of a storage system due to the fact that disk drives and storage systems tend to write slower than they read. While many real-world applications have some random write traffic, this test should be considered a worst-case test that has little resemblance to any real-world application. The metric that matters the most for this workload is I/O’s per second.​

2 MB Sequential Read/Write:

Similar to 512 KB but with larger blocks.​

Database (8K OLTP):

An interactive on-line database application. Order entry and reservation systems are example of OLTP applications. Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server are examples of database applications that are used to create OLTP applications. OLTP applications are characterized by a number of users accessing a shared system in parallel. I/O’s are mostly random reads (70%).​

File Server:

This workload is meant to mimic the I/O activity of a file system. Examples include a network-attached shared home or corporate directory.​

Web Server:

This workload is meant to mimic the I/O activity of a web server, such as Apache.​

Since you linked me here in my RAID6 laptop drive thread, I was gonna do your tests and then discovered that it doesn't like 4K sectors. I can make myself and my test rig available for assistance on fine-tuning your 4K needs.

Your first test (1 block) just needs to be set to 4K. As for the other two (web and ... uh... I can't remember, I'm at work and not looking at it) I think you just need to nuke the first three tests (512, 1K, 2K). But that makes it hard to align those results with the ones you already have, so... Hmm.

Since you linked me here in my RAID6 laptop drive thread, I was gonna do your tests and then discovered that it doesn't like 4K sectors. I can make myself and my test rig available for assistance on fine-tuning your 4K needs.

Your first test (1 block) just needs to be set to 4K. As for the other two (web and ... uh... I can't remember, I'm at work and not looking at it) I think you just need to nuke the first three tests (512, 1K, 2K). But that makes it hard to align those results with the ones you already have, so... Hmm.

I removed the first test and changed the other two problem tests to align at 4k boundaries instead of sector boundaries. I tried this on the first test but performance was absolutely 100% different. It's not a very good test anyway.

With the fileserver and webserver tests the alignment change didn't affect performance on my RAID set which is 512b sectors.

If you don't get errors I'll just swap the file and we'll call it good.

It's almost ridiculous how much faster SSDs are than standard hard drives but we've mostly gotten used to this level of ridiculousness.

It's somewhat surprising that they maintain such a lead over enterprise class hardware. This is a 12 disk RAID5 array. I'll have another 12 disk array coming shortly. (12 disk fibre channel in RAID 10)

I removed the first test and changed the other two problem tests to align at 4k boundaries instead of sector boundaries. I tried this on the first test but performance was absolutely 100% different. It's not a very good test anyway.

With the fileserver and webserver tests the alignment change didn't affect performance on my RAID set which is 512b sectors.

If you don't get errors I'll just swap the file and we'll call it good.

i think my previous results are wrong.. i did select all workers individually for drives while testing and it causes additional queues therefore total queues were (4 queues per 4 workers)16 and it causes very high results expect 2MB seq tests.. I'm sorry for trouble, here are legit results..

i think my previous results are wrong.. i did select all workers individually for drives while testing and it causes additional queues therefore total queues were (4 queues per 4 workers)16 and it causes very high results expect 2MB seq tests.. I'm sorry for trouble, here are legit results..